


Waiting For You

by kalymnos



Category: Tennis RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-04
Updated: 2012-07-04
Packaged: 2017-11-09 04:02:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/451038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kalymnos/pseuds/kalymnos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Rafa keeps asking, and Roger keeps resisting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Waiting For You

Roger says no three times before he says yes.

 

_2003_

The first time, Peter has taken him out for dinner, three months to the day of winning Wimbledon.

"How many more celebration meals can we have?" Roger jokes, the powerful buzz of achievement still a constant thrum in his veins. He stabs at his salad, feels alive and all-conquering.

Peter offers a small smile, raising his wine glass to his lips. "How about one for every set you lost in the final?"

Roger pretends to sulk. "Meaning this is the last one?"

"For now."

"And when I win the Masters in Houston?" He kicks back his chair, stretches out with his hands linked behind his head.

Peter rolls his eyes. "You were lazy and arrogant when I first met you. Good to see-"

"-some things never change," Roger finishes, grinning. 

Later, as the waiter finishes clearing their table, a scrap of paper is placed at Roger's elbow.

The note is handwritten in awkward English lettering. Roger reads it through twice before Peter snatches it up. He grunts and motions to a table over Roger's shoulder. "Spaniards," he mutters. "Everything's a joke."

Roger turns and locks onto four wide-eyed stares before they immediately snap away from him. The table erupts in giggles. He thinks he recognises a couple of faces – juniors, challengers, a few of the older ones already on the circuit – but not the one he's looking for. 

Then, one of the boys leans back, exposing a fifth, his head resting on the tabletop. The others turn their attention to him, laughing and ruffling his hair. Roger watches, amused, as the boy lifts his head, face aflame with embarrassment, swatting at the hands and spitting Spanish obscenities. Suddenly, the boy sneaks a shy glance at him, rosy cheeks and dark, hungry eyes hidden under floppy hair, and Roger snaps his head away.

He faces Peter with a shrug, trying to compose himself.

"A bit of harmless fun, right?" He picks up his water and gulps down huge mouthfuls.

Peter regards him sharply. "He'll be your competition one day. Be careful with him."

They leave soon after, Roger against all stirrings of common sense detouring from the main exit to drop a reply at the Spanish table. There's silence in his wake, and then he hears someone whisper what must be a translation. The door to the restaurant swings shut behind him to raucous laughter and cat-calls. 

_maybe when you're older_

 

That's the first time.

 

_2006_

The second time, the media had it covered from beginning to end. It had been a public engagement, a courtship conducted through the world's eyes, after all, and the rags all viewed it as their consummate duty to see it through to completion. For a week or two, the question arose in every interview Roger took.

"Have you given consideration to Nadal's offer?"

Maybe. Yes? With a thousand doubts and insecurities plaguing him, he had considered it; this time, with much more sobriety than the last. 

Thank you, but no, was what he ended up saying. 

Too intense, too conflicted, too dangerous for their bourgeoning rivalry: those were the reasons he gave for his refusal.

It had nothing to do with increasingly sustained stolen glances with a boy – yes, still a boy – who was beginning to emerge as the one possible candidate with whom Roger wouldn't altogether mind sharing his glory.

 

_2010_

The third time, it was a hotel in Zurich, at just past one o'clock in the morning, and it was for none but the two of them to ever know about.

He opens the door, squinting, wearing nothing but a pair of black briefs. 

"Good evening," says Rafa, leaning heavily against the doorjamb in a relaxed sprawl.

"What are you --? We have to catch a plane in the morning; you remember that, don't you."

Rafa just grins, and Roger couldn't tell you the exact moment he starting composing a classification system for Rafa's facial expressions. This one, as Roger knows from accidentally stumbling upon the occasional post-match celebration, comes after a few too many shots. Tequila, most likely, and the smell of lime is pungent now that he knows to sniff for it.

It was far from the first time this had happened, and he has strong doubts it would be the last.

He sighs. "Come in. Be quiet about it. Don't wake up the other guests."

"You worry too much," Rafa admonishes, kicking off his shoes waywardly and diving for the soft, leather couch. "You always do," Roger hears, the voice much softer and sadder than before.

The exhibition match had been a success, and though Roger understands it intellectually, he still finds it difficult to comprehend the marked difference in their popularity separately and their popularity together. There were few things outside of celebrity couples he could compare it to, and that was a train of thought down which he pointedly refused to go. 

Locking the hotel door and preparing to return to bed, he stands for a few moments over the couch where Rafa is dozing fitfully. He searches, finds a tracksuit jacket lying over a chair, and drapes it over the – _boy,_ his mind insists. 

There's a moment, so familiar to Roger now, when Rafa turns into the comfort of the jacket and inhales deeply, settles immediately down with a sweet murmured "G'night, Rogelio,", and then Roger turns, almost reluctantly, back to his bedroom.

 

In the morning, Rafa is awkward and duck-footed as always, but while he normally scurries out of sight at the earliest opportunity, this morning he lingers by the doorway.

"Roger," he starts. Looks down at his wringing hands, sportsman's hands, and for a moment Roger is transfixed by them too, their strength and power and all of the promise that comes with along too.

"Roger, can I ask you one more time?"

Startled, Roger's gaze snaps up. Resignation wars with the slightest sliver of hope in the brown of Rafa's eyes, and now more than ever, Roger can hear the word as it would manifest itself: yes.

A sudden thought enters his mind. He coughs. "You and Novak?" 

Rafa breaks into a small, rueful smile, and Roger feels childish for having brought it up. "Nole and I don't do so well together, I think."

"No," Roger agrees, perhaps more adamantly that he'd intended. He shifts, reaching up to scratch the back of his neck. "I am not good at this," he confesses.

"At tennis? I'm sorry, you know I won't agree to you saying this."

"No, not at tennis. At this," Roger flaps a hand around nonsensically. 

Rafa stares, waiting. 

"You are much better at this. And I think if I – that is – I want to –" Roger is on the precipice, closer than ever before. And yet --

"Ask me again later," he says quietly. 

It's harder each time to watch the crestfallen look shadow Rafa's face, but it's lessened slightly by the thought that this will be the last time he tells Rafa no. It feels like the last time. But then --

Rafa shakes his head sadly. "I think I can't ask again. It is not so easy to be told three times, no no no," he smiles embarrassedly. "One more will be too many."

Roger stumbles; rallies. "Oh. Yes. Of course." 

Hesitantly, Rafa reaches up and touches his fingertips, gentle and final, to Roger's cheek. "See you, Roger," he says, and walks away.

 

_2011_

The press room is stifling, a rare occasion when the air conditioning has malfunctioned, and it certainly doesn't help the sweat cooling in Roger's freshly-showered hair. Even though the match is over – and he lost – he has still another ordeal to endure.

"How does it feel to lose to Nadal again at this late stage in a tournament?"

"Same as ever."

"Do you think you'll ever win the French Open again in your career?"

The questions are standard. He finds himself racing through them, giving short, clipped answers that make the journalists perk up and salivate at the hint of a jaded former champion reaching the end of his tether. He isn't prepared to satisfy them.

"Excuse me," he says, shooting an apologetic look at the young journalist about to ask a question. "I just have something I'd like to say."

The room begins to buzz; cameras flashes multiply and chairs scrape forward. 

Roger steadies himself. It's one thing to risk his reputation through public humiliation should he be rejected, it's quite another altogether to take the final step and risking being actually _hurt_. But, a braver man before him had done it – and yes, finally, Roger could see the young boy who'd once played pass-the-note for his attention was at last a man – and he was nothing if not competitive.

He clears his throat, repeats his opening words once in his mind first. 

"Rafa and I have played against each other many times now …"

 

Later, after a quick exchange of text messages, they meet up in a secluded player's café on the Roland Garros grounds. 

"You know, I was not just asking to play doubles." Roger feels this is not a strong opening sentence, but he is tired of the tension, tired of the misunderstandings and tired of the waiting.

He cannot begin to comprehend what Rafa must have been feeling. It would serve him every justice for Rafa to turn him down now, in both offers. But there is something special in this wondrous man, the one who rolls his eyes and quirks a smile in no more time than it takes to serve. 

Well, for Roger to serve, anyway.

"I _know_ ," he says with fond exasperation. "And I am not just saying yes to that."

 

In the end it's fitting, crisp and clean as the whites of their clothes, that Wimbledon, home of their greatest battles, should be the place for their debut, in all ways a united front.


End file.
